Well, I didn't go through the full process, so I can't be hard on the school administrators, except insofar as they let that teacher do what she did. It was clearly a classroom in crisis, and even the teacher admitted it. In her words, "There are a lot of behavioral problems in the class." Uh-huh.
We certainly considered going to the principal, but DH and I walked through all the possible outcomes, and since we didn't want grade skipping at the time (a possible mistake on our part, I think), we just didn't see any way it would work for us. Try to work with the teacher? CLEARLY that wasn't going to be a success! Try to change teachers? Unlikely to be successful, unlikely to be helpful, and would be a lot of work, with the only result being our being labeled "THOSE parents!" No thanks!
If you get a teacher who makes clear that she has no intention of working with you from the outset--will see any action taken by you as a personal attack, in fact!--and then rule out grade-skipping, and going to the principal starts to seem pretty pointless...
